Speaker 1: We have breaking news right now.
Speaker 2: Hunter Biden has been assigned a special counsel by the
Speaker 2: Department of Justice.
Speaker 1: That is a bombshell.
Speaker 2: The Department of Justice has assigned a special counsel to
Speaker 2: the Hunter Biden probe. That special council is going to
Speaker 2: be David Weiss. So that was Merrick Garland you just
Speaker 2: heard giving the announcement there, but not sticking around for
Speaker 2: any Q and A. It's interesting, simone, they now have
Speaker 2: a special counsel investigating former President Donald Trump and have
Speaker 2: brought in a new special counsel, David Weiss, who's going
Speaker 2: to be investigating the current president's son, Hunter Biden. But
Speaker 2: of course essentially the GOP wants to through Hunter get
Speaker 2: to President Biden with this.
Speaker 3: Clearly, it's interesting here as well that David Weiss, he
Speaker 3: is the guy that had been handling the probe as
Speaker 3: a US attorney in Delaware. Garland saying he was the
Speaker 3: one who requested this appointment. You know, that investigation, that
Speaker 3: probe had been dragging on for many, many years. So
Speaker 3: it's interesting to see what we believed. I think that
Speaker 3: it was wrapping up to a degree, and then there
Speaker 3: was that failure to enter that plea agreement in court recently.
Speaker 2: A shocking failure there as well. And the question is
Speaker 2: was the investigation dragging on or were they dragging the
Speaker 2: investigation as a one I guess whistleblower had testified. Let's
Speaker 2: get to Ryan Tague Beck with right now on the phone,
Speaker 2: political reporter at Bloomberg News. Ryan, this is definitely a
Speaker 2: shocking headline to see come across. How expected was this
Speaker 2: in Washington?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 5: This is totally unexpected. I mean, I think, you know,
Speaker 5: obviously there had been sort of persistent questions about unter
Speaker 5: Biden that Republicans have been trying to sort of forefront.
Speaker 5: But I think that their hope among Democrats had been
Speaker 5: that Hunter Biden could kind of sort out his legal
Speaker 5: problems and put that to an end. When that plea
Speaker 5: bargain fell apart, that really kind of put things up
Speaker 5: in the air. And I was a little bit uncertain
Speaker 5: why it had fallen apart. But this just sort of
Speaker 5: creates a whole new world of hassle for Hunter Biden
Speaker 5: and concerned for Democrats that you don't know where a
Speaker 5: special Council investigation can lead.
Speaker 3: What's changed here? I mean, I thought these these investigators
Speaker 3: have been looking into Hunter Biden for years. Is this
Speaker 3: simply a political move or is this maybe maybe to
Speaker 3: maintain this image of separation between the administration or is
Speaker 3: this ye? Do we think that they found something new
Speaker 3: that they just haven't investigated?
Speaker 5: I mean, I still don't think that there has been
Speaker 5: a nun ugh material there from all of the investigations
Speaker 5: that have happened to really prove that something untoward or
Speaker 5: extremely bad happened.
Speaker 1: Right, But there's prove is going a long way?
Speaker 3: Is yes?
Speaker 1: I mean, all we need is the appearance of impropriety.
Speaker 5: Yes, there's enough to raise the question, and the question
Speaker 5: has been raised repeatedly, and there've been investigations. I think
Speaker 5: what the special council is a move that you make
Speaker 5: when there's just been too much question about how you
Speaker 5: are investigating it for you to credibly continue to say, no,
Speaker 5: we did this all above board, and it's sort of
Speaker 5: a way of insulating yourself from that an investigation. Then
Speaker 5: you hand it over to a special council. That person
Speaker 5: goes and takes it and runs with it wherever they're
Speaker 5: going to go. And you may not like where they go,
Speaker 5: but at least it's no longer your decision, and so
Speaker 5: I'm I'm a little surprised that they took this move,
Speaker 5: especially now, But I think that with the whistleblowers and
Speaker 5: with just sort of the clear sense that this was
Speaker 5: going to continue to be a political goal, saying no
Speaker 5: matter where the cases went, that this was sort of
Speaker 5: the best approach to show the public that like, Okay,
Speaker 5: this is we're not you know, sacking the deck here,
Speaker 5: this is being fairly investigated.
Speaker 2: So what do we know that they'll be investigating. I mean,
Speaker 2: he had planned as far as I know, on pleading
Speaker 2: guilty to a tax evasion charge. I don't know if
Speaker 2: that phrase is too heavy, but not paying taxes for
Speaker 2: a while and or not paying enough, and to claiming
Speaker 2: to be sober when he bought a gun in twenty
Speaker 2: eighteen when he in fact wasn't sober.
Speaker 1: Is that the only thing? Or is there more?
Speaker 5: Well? I mean keep in mind that, like you know,
Speaker 5: Bill Clinton was impeached over an affair like as the
Speaker 5: end result of a special counsel that was looking into
Speaker 5: a real estate deal. So you know, the special counsel
Speaker 5: can go wherever they think the evidence leads them. And
Speaker 5: as we s you know, as we said, like there's
Speaker 5: a lot of stuff out there that we've heard about.
Speaker 5: That case, you know, kind of shady like, doesn't look great,
Speaker 5: maybe doesn't rise to the level of criminality, but who
Speaker 5: knows where they will go, you know. So the last
Speaker 5: thing you want ever is a special council on your trail,
Speaker 5: because they can turn over any stone they want and
Speaker 5: there's really not any There's not any way to rein
Speaker 5: them in. That's the whole point. So so this investigation
Speaker 5: could go anywhere, or it could be that they go,
Speaker 5: they look through all the stuff they had, they spend
Speaker 5: a little bit more time investigating, and they could wrap
Speaker 5: it all up. And that has happened before. There was
Speaker 5: a Cabinet secretary who was had a special council and
Speaker 5: that at the very end of it, they basically said, yeah,
Speaker 5: there was nothing here. There was never anything here. We
Speaker 5: just you know, we turned it all over, we looked
Speaker 5: at all of it and there was nothing. So that
Speaker 5: can also happen.
Speaker 2: Ryan, I want you to stick with us. Ryan Teague
Speaker 2: beck with there from Bloomberg News in Washington. I want
Speaker 2: to bring in June Grosso. He's a legal analyst from
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio here with us in the Interactive
Speaker 2: Broker Studio June. This is no doubt a surprising twist
Speaker 2: of events and just I think a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: We expected this all to wrap up with a plea agreement.
Speaker 6: What happened to that, Well, Hunter Biden walked into a
Speaker 6: Delaware courtroom expecting to walk out with a plea agreement
Speaker 6: and the judge questioned the deal. It was very strange,
Speaker 6: first of all, because the prosecutors in defense appeared and
Speaker 6: they didn't have the details of the deal nailed down,
Speaker 6: and they there was confusion about whether he was getting
Speaker 6: full immunity from any charges or not. And the judge
Speaker 6: noticed that and said, go back and come back when
Speaker 6: you have a deal hammered out, and when you know
Speaker 6: what the immunity is that he's getting. Because Hunter Biden said, well,
Speaker 6: if I'm not getting immunity, she asked him, would you
Speaker 6: agree to this deal if you're not getting immunity for
Speaker 6: other offenses? And he said no. It was a very
Speaker 6: odd proceeding from the start.
Speaker 3: And that's why you take a plea agreement for well,
Speaker 3: not the only reason, but typically a lot of defendants
Speaker 3: take a plea agreement because they want it to be
Speaker 3: over and done with and they want to wipe their
Speaker 3: hands and walk away. How does this work logistically from
Speaker 3: an invest you're moving the investigation from Delaware to a
Speaker 3: special counsel. Are there any ways that the investigation would change?
Speaker 6: You know, I'm not sure. This is so surprising because
Speaker 6: you know, it's been said time and again that this
Speaker 6: didn't need to be a special counsel, that he had
Speaker 6: all the powers that he needed. So in this case,
Speaker 6: he'll have and you know, he'll have much more resources,
Speaker 6: he can get more people on board, and it'll be
Speaker 6: totally separate from the Delaware office, which I think it
Speaker 6: was anyway. But so Andy, he'll have jurisdiction, wider jurisdiction,
Speaker 6: and so he can go And as Ryan was saying,
Speaker 6: you know, think about the proceeding that's been going on
Speaker 6: forever that started under Donald Trump, the special Council there,
Speaker 6: the Durham, which has been going on for years and
Speaker 6: has resulted in losses at trial and just one plea agreement.
Speaker 6: So the problem with a special council is they have
Speaker 6: rope and a lot of them take it and run
Speaker 6: with it, and it goes on and on and on.
Speaker 6: When it should have been wrapped up. But this way
Speaker 6: he'll do a report at the end. He you know,
Speaker 6: allegedly he doesn't have to answer to the Attorney general,
Speaker 6: but from all that was said, he wasn't answering anyway.
Speaker 6: So I think this is just being done for political purposes,
Speaker 6: really to have the appearance of independence. And you know
Speaker 6: that so that the Republicans in Congress, well, i'd say,
Speaker 6: can't but are less likely to attack some of the
Speaker 6: decisions that are made here. But as far as you
Speaker 6: know what's gone on, it's just been a little bit strange,
Speaker 6: i'd say, And this makes it even more.
Speaker 2: And I mean, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire
Speaker 2: in many cases. And even if there's no fire here
Speaker 2: yet we can agree that there's a lot of smoke, right,
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 6: There is a lot of smoke.
Speaker 1: Is clearly has clearly.
Speaker 2: Attempted to leverage his the powerful position his father is
Speaker 2: in has for years to make money and for that's
Speaker 2: money and I know that's not illegal, and many president's
Speaker 2: family members have done it in the past, right, But no,
Speaker 2: I don't want to make this what about other people?
Speaker 2: The question is, did have the Republicans moved the ball
Speaker 2: any further and attempting to prove that there was actually
Speaker 2: some kickbacks for the Big Gun.
Speaker 6: No they haven't, that's what they want to prove, but
Speaker 6: they have it. And the problem is all the smoke
Speaker 6: around Hunter Biden. So this deal that they gave him,
Speaker 6: based on those charges from the attorneys that I've spoken to,
Speaker 6: who are you know, expert in this area, that deal
Speaker 6: wasn't necessarily a sweetheart deal. It wasn't. In fact, some
Speaker 6: people who were in that position might not have even
Speaker 6: been prosecuted, so they would have made it, you know,
Speaker 6: a plea agreement and just not gone to jail like that.
Speaker 6: The tax charges where he paid the tax ahead of time,
Speaker 6: and the gun charges, a lot of people don't even
Speaker 6: get prosecuted on those. So it wasn't a sweetheart deal.
Speaker 6: But all the smoke around it, and all the Republican
Speaker 6: inquiries and also the whistleblowers who testified that you know,
Speaker 6: there was something wrong with the investigation, that all has
Speaker 6: created a lot of smoke, and now it has to
Speaker 6: be you know, has to be solved. And you know,
Speaker 6: most of the smoke is about his leveraging his father's name.
Speaker 6: But there hasn't been any proof that Biden was part
Speaker 6: of that. And also, you know, talk about Washington, how much.
Speaker 1: It seemed to come into conference calls and meetings quite
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 6: I don't talk about, though, how much leveraging like nepotism
Speaker 6: in this country. The country runs by nepotism. I mean
Speaker 6: it's like, how many people do you know whose fathers
Speaker 6: were you know, CEOs of organizations that they're in actors, actresses.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's ever news business, it's everywhere and then
Speaker 6: and then.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know you think Trump administration, there were
Speaker 3: there were daughters and son in laws who are very
Speaker 3: close to the business. I don't want to go I
Speaker 3: don't want to go nowhere.
Speaker 6: I don't want to go to the what about?
Speaker 3: But I wonder how many special councils we truly need?
Speaker 2: Right again, this administration was supposed to not be doing
Speaker 2: things the Trump administration was doing.
Speaker 1: That was kind of the idea, Well.
Speaker 6: That Trump How many special councils did the Trump administration have?
Speaker 2: So we're going to come back to question. This is
Speaker 2: I think all of a sudden made your day a
Speaker 2: lot busier. I want to get back to the breaking
Speaker 2: news that we have Hunter Biden, the hunter Biden probe
Speaker 2: over the DOJ has been assigned a special council. So
Speaker 2: we saw briefly Merrick Garland come out and make a
Speaker 2: statement appointing this special council to oversee the government's ongoing
Speaker 2: criminal investigation into President Biden's son over his taxes, as
Speaker 2: well as a number of other issues. Certainly the Republicans
Speaker 2: hope there will be another number of other issues there.
Speaker 2: We have Nick Ackerman on the phone right now. He's
Speaker 2: a former assistant special Watergate prosecutor, and Nick, you know,
Speaker 2: typically we would talk to you about all things Trump.
Speaker 2: Increasingly these conversations are about the Biden family, certainly about
Speaker 2: Hunter Biden. We thought it was all going to be
Speaker 2: over a couple of weeks ago with the plea agreement,
Speaker 2: and now it's come to this.
Speaker 1: Are you surprised?
Speaker 4: Not completely. I was surprised that the plea didn't go
Speaker 4: down on the day it was supposed to, but since
Speaker 4: then this is not at all surprising. I think it
Speaker 4: was pretty clear at that point that debtly would not
Speaker 4: have taken care of all the other matters that might
Speaker 4: be under investigation, and I think that Merrick Garland did
Speaker 4: the right thing. Appointed Weiss had made it official that
Speaker 4: he's really a special prosecutor in this thing and that
Speaker 4: he has complete independence as he had before. And I
Speaker 4: think it just solidifies that. Don't forget he was appointed
Speaker 4: initially as the US attorney in Delaware, Yeah, by Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: So I think this just you know, provides more a
Speaker 4: distance between the Department of Justice and the prosecutor.
Speaker 3: But does it give him any extra tools. I just
Speaker 3: you know, it seems like an investigation had had been
Speaker 3: happening for a long time. All the members of the
Speaker 3: Biden administration had had said, you know, Mary Gurland's given
Speaker 3: him a bunch of tools whatever he wants. But now
Speaker 3: you know the escalation here. June Grassa was just with us,
Speaker 3: she's a legal analyst at Bloomberg Law, and was saying,
Speaker 3: you know, this looks like political move plain and simple.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's it's part of what Merrick Garland
Speaker 4: has done all around. I mean, he has tried on
Speaker 4: these types of cases that affects the administration and particularly
Speaker 4: Joe Biden, to put make sure that the person who's
Speaker 4: doing the investigation, whether it's Jack Smith or whether it's wise,
Speaker 4: that they are completely independent. I mean, I think what
Speaker 4: Garland is trying to do is basically used the model
Speaker 4: of Archibald Cox, who has made the first Watergate Special prosecutor,
Speaker 4: where he really had total independence, wasn't answerable to the
Speaker 4: Department of Justice. And I think that's what Mark Garland
Speaker 4: is trying to set up, so that there is complete
Speaker 4: buffer between the Department of Justice and Joe Biden. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think that's really the whole purpose of this is
Speaker 4: to have somebody in there who is truly independent, and
Speaker 4: I think this was a way to make it more formalized,
Speaker 4: particularly if there are other areas to be investigated. Now,
Speaker 4: having said that a question, you know, what is left
Speaker 4: to investigate, mainly because you've got a statute of limitations
Speaker 4: that goes for five years and most of these matters,
Speaker 4: and if you take the two tack crimes, they were
Speaker 4: at a period of time. Now that's getting beyond a
Speaker 4: normal statute of limitations for anything, probably other than tax crimes.
Speaker 4: So I just, you know, I think it's in some
Speaker 4: sense it is political to the extent that it's set
Speaker 4: up so that there is no question of politics not
Speaker 4: being involved. I mean, I think, you know, to the
Speaker 4: extent you're saying it's political. I'm having complete independence from
Speaker 4: the Department of Justice and from Merrick Garland just adds
Speaker 4: to the fact that the person has the independent ability
Speaker 4: to do what he's doing. And even though under this
Speaker 4: crazy special prosecutor regulation it's supposedly the special prosecutor ultimately
Speaker 4: answers to the Attorney General. I think that Merrick Garland
Speaker 4: has been and made it clear that he's been totally
Speaker 4: hands off on all of these matters, whether it's Jack
Speaker 4: Smith or now it's going to be wise.
Speaker 2: I mean, frankly, nidn't they have been a lot better
Speaker 2: off if they've done this from the get go because
Speaker 2: the concerns are on the Republican side, not just the
Speaker 2: tax crimes or the gun issue, but the the sort
Speaker 2: of foot dragging, you know, the idea that if the
Speaker 2: president's son is a tax evader, he can get away
Speaker 2: with it, or he'll be given a lighter sentence, Like
Speaker 2: wouldn't President Biden or the administration of Ben smarter to
Speaker 2: get this out of the way at the at the beginning?
Speaker 4: Oh, I totally agree with you, But I think from
Speaker 4: Merrick Doland's standpoint, appointing somebody who to investigate this, who
Speaker 4: was a Trump appointee as US attorney in Delaware had
Speaker 4: the same effect, but in some ways it didn't, And
Speaker 4: I think what he's trying to do is emphasize that now.
Speaker 4: It also sends a signal that there are other matters
Speaker 4: to be investigated. He wouldn't be doing this unless there
Speaker 4: was something more to invent the gate beyond the tax crimes.
Speaker 4: So I think this probably also signals the fact that
Speaker 4: there's not going to be a plea anytime soon. That
Speaker 4: I think that there are other matters that they're looking at,
Speaker 4: and I don't think they're in a position yet to
Speaker 4: say they're going to put this all behind Hunter Biden. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, so there was this closed door testimony of
Speaker 3: Hunter Biden's X business partner, Devin Archer, and I think
Speaker 3: the takeaway from some of the press was that this
Speaker 3: didn't really back up the Republicans accusing President Biden, you know,
Speaker 3: of crime and corruption. But there were some bits and
Speaker 3: pieces in there. Was there anything there for you that
Speaker 3: you thought, you know, this might be potentially the subject
Speaker 3: of the a probe that could be continued under David Wise, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Not really. I mean, it sounded like Hunter Biden had
Speaker 4: his dad call in a couple of times, five times
Speaker 4: over a long period of time, basically trading off his
Speaker 4: name but trading off his connection. You know, a lot
Speaker 4: of other presidents in the past have had the same problem,
Speaker 4: and Richard Nixon did, Jimmy Carter did. Even Hillary Clinton
Speaker 4: had this problem with her brother that relatives. You know,
Speaker 4: if you can pick your friends, but you can't pick
Speaker 4: your relatives, basically, and it's always been something that's be
Speaker 4: deviled presidents and people in high public office. So I
Speaker 4: don't think it really reflected that there was any there there.
Speaker 4: But look, the public has to be assured that everything
Speaker 4: is being done by the book, that everything that's out
Speaker 4: there is being investigated, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: I think this will give that assurance. You know, one
Speaker 4: he's a special made the special counsel on this, and
Speaker 4: two he was a former try up a point. I'm
Speaker 4: a Republican who was the Delaware US attorney who's been
Speaker 4: kept on and he's the one investigating it. So I
Speaker 4: really don't see how you can have anybody with any
Speaker 4: better credentials to do this than Weiss. And I think
Speaker 4: this provides exactly what needs to be done.
Speaker 2: Did we find out who the big guy was, Nick,
Speaker 2: I mean if in the emails that the Post got
Speaker 2: out of the laptop, in the quote on the CFC
Speaker 2: China Energy venture when they said ten held by h
Speaker 2: for the big guy, did we ever figure out who
Speaker 2: that was?
Speaker 4: Well, so far they haven't found any there there, But
Speaker 4: it doesn't mean that they shouldn't investigate it and assure
Speaker 4: the public that they've looked at everything before they close
Speaker 4: out the case. I think that is what they've got
Speaker 4: to do, all right, and that's what Weiss's job is.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Nick, thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate you
Speaker 2: jumping in on this breaking news. Nick Ackerman, former special
Speaker 2: Watergate Watergate prosecutor, talking to us about the breaking news
Speaker 2: that the Department of Justice will appoint a special prosecutor
Speaker 2: in the Hunter Biden probe and that prosecutor is David Weiss.
Speaker 2: For Simone Foxman, I'm Matt Miller. This is Bloomberg